Today it is hard to believe how much hope Catholics once invested in Robert Mugabe. When he was elected prime minister of Zimbabwe in 1980, the Catholic press bubbled with excitement. Here was a man who had reputedly prayed the rosary throughout the guerrilla war to end white rule. A Jesuit education had prepared him to lead the country for the good of all Zimbabweans after the darkness of colonial rule.
But the deeper you delve into Mugabe’s biography the easier it is to understand the adulation. His mother had taken him to Mass daily as she wrestled with two family disasters: abandonment by her husband and the death of her eldest son. With the Irish Jesuit headmaster Fr Jerome O’Hea, she encouraged the young Robert to dream of future greatness. He seemed poised to fulfil that vision when he emerged from the Rhodesian Bush War ready to lead the newly independent nation.
Yet Mugabe soon began to embarrass his admirers. In 1983 the Zimbabwe National Army started to massacre civilians belonging to the minority Ndebele ethnic group. The International Association of Genocide Scholars estimates that more than 20,000 people were eventually killed. Not surprisingly, Mugabe’s most formidable clerical critic belonged to the Ndebele. Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo became progressively more outspoken about Mugabe’s misrule in the early 2000s. In 2007, he even suggested that Britain would be justified if it decided to recolonise Zimbabwe. Shortly afterwards, images of the archbishop apparently engaging in an affair were splashed across the state media. Ncube resigned and left the country. (He has since returned and is now a retreat leader who prays for three-and-a-half hours a day.)
Mugabe also saw off opposition within the Anglican Church, thanks to the maverick Bishop of Harare, Nolbert Kunonga, who split the communion with his fiercely pro-government views (for which he was eventually excommunicated). The only effective opposition left came from the Pentecostal pastor Evan Mawarire, who used social media to highlight government corruption – and was arrested five times for his efforts.
But tellingly, Mugabe’s downfall did not result from his human rights abuses or his treatment of clerical opponents, but from his uxoriousness: he had sacked his vice-president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, to clear a path for his wife, Grace, to succeed him. He had married Grace in 1996, after the death of his immensely popular first wife, Sally. The wedding took place in a Catholic church, though Grace’s religious background is unclear. She alienated the public with her extravagance and now it is Mnangagwa, not her, who will rule post-Mugabe Zimbabwe.
Mugabe’s decline is a cautionary tale for the Catholic Church. A deep Catholic formation is, sadly, no guarantee of future righteousness. No one is immune to the temptations of power and Mugabe ultimately succumbed to them.
The Church should have spoken out earlier and more forcefully, but was too enamoured by the rosary-bearing revolutionary who emerged at a time of unprecedented optimism in Africa. Put not your trust in princes, said the psalmist. Centuries later that’s still indispensable advice.
Congratulations to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, who are engaged to be married. The news that the popular and handsome Prince is to marry the former actress and star of the television show Suits will no doubt lift the nation’s spirits, and help take our minds off all the depressing stories that fill the papers these days. Indeed, we can expect wide coverage of the royal engagement, and of the wedding in the spring.
It is not quite clear what Ms Markle’s religious allegiance is, if any. Some sources believe she is Jewish, others that she is Catholic, and still others that she has never been baptised. We do know, however, that she has been married before, in what seems to have been a civil ceremony, though that marriage was short-lived.
This lack of clarity will no doubt soon be resolved, as it will make a difference to where and how the couple marry. In recent years, two non–royal relations of the Royal Family (Peter Phillips and Marina Ogilvy) married spouses who were born Catholics but who embraced Anglicanism on marriage.
More recently still, Catherine Middleton, a baptised Anglican, was confirmed before she married Prince William. The House of Windsor takes its allegiance to the Anglican Church seriously, as few observers should doubt.
The religious question is unlikely to arouse much curiosity in contemporary Britain, and this magazine is largely alone in its speculation on it. The public at home and abroad will rather concentrate on the hope that the marriage will be happy, and that Ms Markle will make a good princess. Royalty still counts for much, and her marriage to the Prince gives Ms Markle the opportunity to do much good in the world. We wish her well.
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
Areas of Catholic Herald business are still recovering post-pandemic.
However, we are reaching out to the Catholic community and readership, that has been so loyal to the Catholic Herald. Please join us on our 135 year mission by supporting us.
We are raising £250,000 to safeguard the Herald as a world-leading voice in Catholic journalism and teaching.
We have been a bold and influential voice in the church since 1888, standing up for traditional Catholic culture and values. Please consider donating.